{The Ordinary Moments #19} Fun with the family

Yesterday we visited my sister and brother in law at their caravan with my in-law's. We had been looking forward to it all week, but in true British style, the weather took a turn for the worst and it was pouring down on the way. Not to be deterred by the weather, we decided we would still go and make the most of it... and I'm so glad we did. We had such a lovely few hours.

For once, all the kids played nicely - usually Alfie is the one being dramatic or throwing a tantrum as three year old's do, but yesterday he was in a great mood and so well behaved. When we arrived, it had just started to rain, so we stayed in the caravan for a drink and lunch in hope that it'd stop raining. Thankfully, it did, so we headed out to Morcambe. As soon as we got there, Alfie was insistent that he was going on the beach! It's such a shame that the weather was so bad because the beach was lovely. We let Alfie and Jack run along it for a few minutes, which seemed to pacify Alfie.

Next up, we stopped off at the arcade's. It's Alfie's first time in one and he absolutely loved it. There's just something about sitting there putting 2p after 2p in a machine and watching with excitement to see if you are going to win anything. It doesn't even matter that you might spend £3 worth of coppers just to get a drop of 10p - it's just such a thrill of winning. Even the adults joined in (Michael especially loved it) and all three kids won a prize. We were only there about 20 minutes but it was such fun.

After we'd spent all our money on the slot machines, we had a walk to the most lovely little cafe where my Mother in law used to go when she was a child. It's called Brucciani's and has been there since 1939. It was really lovely for my MIL to go somewhere with her own kids and grand-kids that she's got such fond memories of from her own childhood. The ice cream was absolutely gorgeous!

Sadly, after we'd left there, the weather had taken a turn for the worst and in true British style, a lot of us were dressed for Summer in shorts and t-shirts and sandals and the umbrella's we had weren't really cutting it, so we headed back to the car!

My MIL in law very kindly gave us some money for Alfie, so we bought him the England hoody in the picture below. I'd seen it on the Aldi website a couple of weeks ago and when we arrived yesterday, Jack had on one and I think it looks fab and it's such good quality, so on the way back to the caravan, we stopped off at Aldi to pick one up for Alfie.  I think they look so cute in their matching hoodie's! The kids played so well together for the first time in a long time - usually, one of them has got in on them and it's usually Alfie, but I think the excitement of being in the caravan helped him behave all day, which made for such a great day.

It did dry up a little bit and Alfie and Holly played on the field in front of the caravan. I don't think there is anything better than listening to the joy of kids playing. I watched them for ages! When they all play nicely together, it's so lovely to watch. They're a real little gang. Alfie is probably closer to Holly as there is only 3 years in them, whereas there's  7 years between him and Alfie. However, Jack really does look after Alfie and I often see him being quite protective over him. It makes me feel so proud that Alfie is growing up with such lovely cousins.

I'm looking forward to hopefully having lots more adventures over the Summer with these 3!

* Linking up with Katie at Mummy Daddy and me makes three for The Ordinary Moments

{The Ordinary Moments #1} Cousins

For the last couple of years, I've been taking pictures of my little family as part of the Me & Mine project, which was created by Lucy. Without this, I wouldn't have captured two years of photo's of me and my boys every month. So when Lucy created the siblings linky, it made me really excited to have another baby so I wouldn't finally be able to join in. 

Somewhere  along the way, I decided that although I couldn't do 'sibling' pictures, I could do 'cousin' pictures. I spoke to my sister in law about it, to see if she was up for me photographing Alfie and my niece and nephew every month and at the end of the year, we would put all the pictures of the three of them together as a Christmas present for my mother and father in law. Luckily, she was really on board with it. 

When I was growing up, I was really close to all of my cousins but two in particular. Gemma is 3 months younger than me and Anthony is a year younger. I have such fond memories of the three of us all playing together and having sleep overs when we were kids. I'm still really close to them now - so much so that they were bridesmaid and usher at our wedding in 2014 and are also Alfie's godparents. 

I'm very lucky that Alfie and his two cousins also have a great relationship. Holly, at 6, is the closest in age to Alfie and Jack is the eldest of the three at 10. I feel very lucky that Alfie gets to grow up with Jack and Holly as he's got two ready made friends in them and they really are the best big cousins we could wish for. Very often, I'll see Jack putting a protective arm round Alfie if they're at soft play or playing in the garden and Holly will very often adapt to doing what Alfie wants when they're playing together. Just yesterday, we were at my in-laws and Holly was building a tower which Alfie knocked over a couple of times, (which we told him to stop doing). Rather than getting upset of falling out about it, Holly very kindly built another tower for him and made a big fuss over him when he knocked it down, as he'd wanted. It's little things that like that which make me realise what great kids they are and how much they put up with from Alfie. (He's going through a not sharing stage and finds it difficult to share his toys sometimes).

Every month last year, we managed to get together and get a picture of them. Some months were harder than others as some days one or the other didn't want their picture taking (it was usually Alfie), but overall I'm so proud that I've captured these pictures of them all for a whole year. It was wonderful to be able to frame them all for my inlaws to give to them on Christmas day. 

I'm really proud of this bunch of photo's, but more than that, I'm proud of the three great kids in them. They're growing up to be such good friends and I'm so excited to continue watching them grow and change over the next year.

I love how something as ordinary as taking a picture, can bring so much happiness to people and capture so many memories. I can't wait for them all to be older and we can look back on these pictures together. 

*linking up with Katie over at Mummy Daddy and me makes three